Kathmandu/Cricnepal: Kathmandu and Lalitpur set the title clash of the U-19 Regional Selection Cricket Tournament for Region Number III Kathmandu.
On thursday’s matches, Kathmandu beat Nuwakot by 148 runs while Lalitpur defeated Bhaktapur by 9 wickets in a must win match.
Kathmandu came in to bat first after Nuwakot opted to field winning the toss and put up a total of 214 runs in 27.5 overs losing all wickets.
Ayush Jung Rana top scored with 39 runs off 36 balls with five fours while Indrakamal Manandhar(37 off 35), Bijay Gautam(30 off 42), Sunam Gautam 29(14) and Prajesh Bahadur Singh(26 off 9) were the other major contributors. Gautam smashed away four fours and a six while Singh shared equal six and three fours. Manandhar had four fours.
Rajesh Shrestha and Dipendra Pyakurel shared five wickets each for Nuwakot.
In reply, only Kumar Sherpa gave Nuwakot a double digit score as they had to be bundled for another low total of 66 runs where 20 runs were extras. Nuwakot lost all the wickets in 23.4 overs.
Rajesh Shrestha added 8 runs while Rajiv Maharjan made 7 runs for Nuwakot.
In Kathmandu’s bowling, Suyash Aryal picked up three wickets from his 5 overs conceding only 10 runs(5 went for wide) and Jagat Chhetri also picked up equal wickets in 2.4 overs conceding just 6 runs. Man of the match Bijay Gautam took two wickets in his 5 overs conceding 13 runs.
While in the second match, Bhaktaour made a low total of 120 runs which Lalitpur chased in just 17.2 overs losing only a wicket. Rajan Karki scored 41 runs off 51 deliveries with three fours, Jeevan Lamsal and Ram Krishna Jaishwal added 16 runs each and Madhav Shrestha made 13 runs before Bhaktapur posted a 120 runs in 29.4 overs losing all wickets.
Sharad Khadka powered the bowling of Lalitpur with four wickets from 5.4 overs conceding only 29 runs. Jeeba Lal Bhattarai and Dipendra Shah picked up two wickets each while Ujwal Thapa took a wicket.
In reply, man of the match Sharad Khadka remained unbeaten at 63 runs off 58 balls with ten fours and Ujwal Thapa added 36 runs off 34 balls including four fours into Lalitpur’s win. Pawan Shrestha remained not out at 10 runs.
Purushottam Jha picked up the only wicket for Bhaktapur.
On Friday’s final match, Kathmandu will take on Lalitpur after Kathmandu finished up as winner and Lalitpur finished as runner up in the group stage.
